The End of the Affair

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In this week's programme

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The End of the Affair?

David Walker

If our world changed profoundly on September 11, it underwent another transformation in early October.

The Transport Secretary Stephen Byers' decision to put Railtrack into administration was not just another move in the transport game. It said, after two decades of nearly continuous

If government does go too far in trying to make companies operate in certain ways then companies themselves can remove their business.

Angela Knight,
Chief Executive, APCIMS

movement in one direction -from government to market - that the state not only retained power over markets but was prepared to pull the plug on private property. Of course this act of " socialism" has to be heavily qualified, by the specific circumstances of Railtrack's dependence on public money to survive.

And while no one disputes the basic " pro capitalist" consensus: Private business operating in markets produces

It's a hiccup, it's not a great crisis. There is, frankly, some unjustified whingeing going on.

Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State, DTI

wealth and, through taxation, the wherewithal for public spending; none the less it seems that there might now be a new disequilibrium, a new chill in relations between government and business.

David Walker assesses the significance of the Railtrack decision and asks whether, as recession looms, New Labour is poised for more active intervention in the affairs of the private sector.